Introduction

For the past 20 years, task-based language teaching (TBLT) has attracted the attention of second language acquisition (SLA) researchers, curriculum developers, educationalists, teacher trainers and language teachers worldwide. To a great extent, the introduction of TBLT into the world of language education has been a ‘top-down’ process. The term was coined, and the concept developed, by SLA researchers and language educators, largely in reaction to empirical accounts of teacher-dominated, form-oriented second language classroom practice (Long & Norris, 2000). In their seminal writings, Long (1985) and Prabhu (1987), among others, supported an approach to language education in which students are given functional tasks that invite them to focus primarily on meaning exchange and to use language for real-world, non-linguistic purposes. Twenty years later, we have reached the stage where volumes that synthesize what we know about how TBLT can promote language learning are being published (Bygate et al., 2001; Ellis, 2003; Lee, 2000; Nunan, 2005).

However, much of the research concerning TBLT has been conducted under laboratory conditions or in tightly controlled settings. Furthermore, most of the research has been psycholinguistic in nature, inspired by a desire to elaborate our knowledge of how people acquire a second language. In SLA research, tasks have been widely used as vehicles to elicit language production, interaction, negotiation of meaning, processing of input and focus on form, all of which are believed to foster second language acquisition.